Post #4584303 · Elektrine

2026-08-28 10:07 UTC

Ex soviet block kid here, even got CCCP stamp in an old passport. This might be true, but it might be worth considering that by late 70 it would not really matter that much. You could hardly get anything with the money left, basic food products included. Buying meat in a store would be a thing of a chance or you got nasty scraps, and there was really little other options beyond popatos and a few other very basic foods. In my country most of 80s people would que for most of the day to buy toilet paper, and one your run around the city based on rumor on where something could be gotten. This created a massive black market, but there prices would make an average pay worthless. And also any western foreign currency would be worth much more than local, as they were key for smugglers, anyone looking to escape to the other side and tightly controlled (if you were even given a passport and were allowed to travel abroad you could buy a very small amount of currency, much below what would be needed to sustain oneself). Anyways stuff like this, institutional inertia and stiffness, plus repression of any attempts at change created a feedback loop of a massive shadow economy and corruption that chocked the system and created a deeply pathological culture that has been an issue in the region since.

Replies (4)

@naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-08-28 11:09

I think it’s pretty uncontroversial that the USSR ended on a low note. Decades of economic isolation by western powers, constant conflict with the usa, loss of faith in the government through some of the destalinisation measures and liberalisation of the economy all took their toll. If history had gone a bit differently and revolutions elsewhere hadn’t been stamped out paving the way for the rise of the Nazis and the ascension of the USA on the back of nuclear horror things might’ve gone a lot better.

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@Tomorrow_Farewell@lemmy.ml 2026-08-28 13:50

The experiences of my family (in the USSR) were not as you describe. Things were cheap and necessities were available. Getting some things was more difficult for non-price reasons. That also seems to align with studies like what the CIA conducted about access to nutrition in the USSR. Overall, that was a significant improvement over what came before, as well as over what came after.

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@obvs@lemmy.world 2026-08-28 17:46

You understand your whole post is because capitalist systems have always fought to deny resources to communist-leaning systems, right? So for example, the problems Cuba is facing right now aren’t problems with communism but a problem with the fascist dictatorship next door working to deny it resources. When you’re being starved by a kidnapper, your own personal finances aren’t your primary problem.

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@whoisearth@lemmy.ca 2026-08-28 10:19

I have many friends that were children of the block like you. Talk to them and they all share your same opinion. It is fucked up today the western youth is now glazing on the old USSR days when you talk to everyone who experienced them and they were garbage. Personally speaking I don’t want to have to wait in a bread line every morning.

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